


Old Feelings

by jayhood



Series: Old Feelings [1]
Category: Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amnesiac Jason Todd, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss, Multi, Polyamory, friends to strangers to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24125308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayhood/pseuds/jayhood
Summary: "He and Kory wanted Jason back, and they got him, only it wasn't him. It was a guy strongly resembling him, if you took everything that made Jason Todd Jason Todd, and put it into the blender, and pour the resulted shake down the sink."Roy adjusts to the new Jason Todd.
Relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd, Roy Harper/Koriand'r, Roy Harper/Koriand'r/Jason Todd
Series: Old Feelings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1806856
Comments: 13
Kudos: 92





	Old Feelings

**Author's Note:**

> The premise is that Ra's is dead so Jason doesn't have to fight him on top of the Untitled. He doesn't have to get his memories back.

He looked happier like that.

Roy felt awful. He and Kory wanted Jason back, and they got him, only it wasn't _him_. It was a guy strongly resembling him, if you took everything that made Jason Todd _Jason Todd_ , and put it into the blender, and poured the resulted shake down the sink.

But then the Untitled were gone, and the assassins released both Kory and Roy on his demand, and he decided to leave with them after all.

"So what now?" Roy asked when all three of them were onboard of HSSS Starfire.

Jason shrugged.

"Kinda hoped you or Koriand'r have something planned."

"So you wish to stay with us?" Kory temporarily left her pilot chair after they took off, returning to where Roy and Jason were sitting on the floor, together.

"Yes," Jason said and looked up at her. "I mean, if you still want that."

He looked down again.

"I don't want to return my memories. I've done alright without them, right? Kept the evil from overtaking the world or whatever. But if you want that guy back... The one who killed, assassinated, tortured people... I don't want to be _that_ , again."

Kory sat across him, took his hands in hers.

"I killed people, too," she said when their eyes met. "Roy did. We probably will again. He never derived pleasure from it, only did when it's necessary. It is not so with me. I killed my captors and it felt glorious. I will kill anyone who took part in enslaving my world. Enslaving me. It won't matter if they are not fighting me. If they could be restrained by other means. If they have loved ones, kids, a family that depends on them. Knowing this, will you be alright with me?"

"Of course," he said without hesitation. "It's different for you. Or Roy."

"How so?"

Jason shrugged. Didn't reply, turned his head away.

"You're different. You're both good. So good. You came back for me, even if I didn't want you to. Even if I'm never going to be your friend again."

"Won't you?" Kory asked. "Your memories do not matter to me as much. We just have to make you new ones, together."

Jason smiled, a small, hesitant but hopeful smile. Roy was kind of in ave. The more he came to know Kory, the more amazing she turned out to be. Powerful, confident, beautiful, yes. But also smart, and kind, and inspiring. God, he loved her.

He loved it when Jason smiled, too, he decided. He had never done that and mean it before.

The actual decision where to go from there had been dropped onto Roy.

Jason just asked something where they didn't have to shoot people, Kory asked for somewhere they could dance.

Elysium Island it was, then. He charted the course, Kory flew them there, Jason spent a lot of time on the Internet. When Roy asked what he was looking up, not his own history again, he hoped, Jason tried to shield his screen from him.

"No," Jason said. He wasn't scowling, though. He looked kinda embarrassed.

"Alright," Roy said, backing off.

With Jason as he was before, he would totally try to look, maybe snatch the palm tablet from his hands, and they would have a small scuffle where Jason would end up scowling furiously but relishing his grip on the device, and Roy laughing at him even if his ribs would have been bruised slightly.

Jason-now wouldn't punch him for it, though, and that would make it an unfair fight.

Jason looked at him quickly and then back at the screen, and said.

"I don't know how to dance."

"Sure you do," Roy dismissed. "You just don't remember it."

"Yeah, well, I feel like I don't. Nothing in my 'resume' screamed ' _has moves_ ', you know?"

"Yeah, but you got a great body," Roy waved, "you know how to use all these muscles, subconsciously. So it's going to be like fighting, just do what feels natural."

"It's not that easy," Jason said stubbornly. "Watch."

He tapped a few buttons, and the projector screen appeared at the center of the room. It was a hip-hop collective doing a choreography video. They were good, and Roy saw Kory eyeing them appreciatively. 

"I don't know what to tell you," Roy said. "I can't dance like that either."

"I can," Kory said, unhelpfully. She stood up from her chair, swayed a little in time with music, nodding along before jumping right in and repeating what was being shown on the screen.

"I can teach you too!" she said cheerfully. 

She caught them both by their hands and dragged them to the empty space. She stood behind Roy, moving his hands and directing his hips, his legs. When she showed him what to do, it was easy. But when she decided it was Jason's turn, it went far worse. He was just too stiff, and then she told him to relax, he went too limp, and in the end, he waved her away, saying that he wants to try by himself. 

She went back to Roy, and they danced some more, and then they got distracted, and then they were laughing and kissing and they turned to Jason but he wasn't there anymore.

Jason tried to avoid them for the rest of the flight. Roy thought he understood why.

"You want us to swing by Gotham? Your ex lives there. Might be a good opportunity to reconnect. Begin anew."

"Well, the fact I don't remember anything about them puts a new twist on that expression," Jason said, grimacing. "Nah. Thanks but..."

"Alright," Roy clapped his shoulder a little awkwardly and kind of just let his hand rest there for the lack of anything better. 

Jason didn't shrug it off. The opposite - he leaned into him.

"Is this what we're doing?" he asked. "Starting anew?"

"We already got a headstart, with saving the world and narrowly escaping death and all. Adrenaline bonds people, doesn't it?"

Jason shrugged.

"Is that what your friendship was based on?" he asked. "You got into one firefight after another, and that made you brothers-in-arms?"

Roy frowned. He remembered their second first meeting. Jason, disguised as a priest, whipping the guns out and busting him from prison, shooting anything moving in their direction. Kory, flying towards them, her orange hair flowing around her head like a fiery crown. They both were so beautiful at that moment, he wanted to kiss them senseless if only it didn't mean stopping and getting killed.

"No," he said. "Not exactly."

Elysium was a bust.

It started nice enough. They went to the beach, first, which Roy complained was ridiculous: if they wanted to get a tan, they could have just stayed on their island. They would have been able to do it without any tan lines either.

"They serve cocktails here, though," Jason said.

"Yeah," Roy turned away from the bar. "I don't drink though. Two years sober."

"Cool," Jason replied simply. "Wait here and I'm going to check if they have any lemonade or something."

Kory, in the meantime, finished applying sunscreen on his back and stretched out on their blanket. She didn't need it - Roy wasn't sure if she could get tan, anyway. She was like a miniature sun herself. _Hot_ , his brain supplied, and Roy scolded himself. Yeah, but that wasn't what he meant. She was the brightest, purest light in the galaxy. Getting too close to her, though, was dangerous. Not because Roy was afraid she hurts him. He _knew_ she will. One day, maybe not _soon_ , with Jason still feeling raw and unmoored, but maybe a year from now. Six months. She was going to wake up and remember that she was a princess and he was a pauper. She had her people, very far away, and Roy didn't have anyone except her and Jason. He wasn't afraid of losing them because in a way he already did, it just hadn't happened yet. 

If he knew what was good for him, he would stay away, was what he was saying. 

He knew what would Kory said, though, if she heard his thoughts. _Don't mistake cowardice for wisdom_.

Jason would have said, _Yeah, what she said_. And then he would have left first.

The beach bar did have some pretty great and refreshing non-alcoholic options. Roy still felt pretty drunk by the end of the day. They got lessons in surfing, which Roy didn't even think was a thing with the Mediterranean sea. Though, he wouldn't put artificial climate past whoever ran this place. They also swam until their skin became prune and cold, played with a frisbee, which Kory dominated, and kissed, drawn-out and lazy.

Well, Roy and Kory did. Jason kinda faded away when they did that. The first time Roy break off from Kory and noticed his absence, he became a little frantic, looking for him everywhere.

He shouldn't have bothered because Kory just took to the air and scanned the beach until she pointed Jason out to Roy. He was near the bar again, a dude was chatting him up.

"Be right back, baby," Roy kissed Kory shortly after she got down, and jogged to where Jason was standing.

It didn't look like Jason was having a good time. Whoever the dude was, he was older and had this air of douchebag surrounding him, like he was used to his name opening doors and legs for him. Roy didn't catch what he was saying, but it was clear he was laying it on a little thick, and Jason was more embarrassed than anything. 

He let it show on his face, and didn't put the asshole down with a few choice words, or even just punched him. Roy didn't like it.

When he was near enough, he called out Jason's name. Jason turned to him immediately, so he didn't flinch when Roy put his hands around his waist and locked his fingers on Jason's stomach. Jason relaxed into him, letting Roy support his weight a little. Roy sniffed discreetly the drink he was holding. Yeah, that wasn't a virgin Mary, and it was almost all done.

"Partying without us?" he whispered without lowering his voice and bit Jason's earlobe slightly.

Jason made a sound. Roy didn't get if it was "Yeah" or "Ah", or anything else, but it wasn't "Ew", and he thought he better do it again and maybe slower so he could hear it again. To figure it out, of course.

The older dude left, but neither of them really noticed or remembered until after they returned to Kory.

She looked at them both, shall he say, very intensely. Jason saw it too, and moved away from Roy immediately.

When the sun went down, they took a quick shower (separately; hotel bathrooms, unlike their starship's, did not accommodate to the use of facilities all three of them at the same time). 

Jason got himself in a suit, like _trousers_ _and a dress shirt and a jacket_ suit, and Roy just shook his head in despair. Jason rolled his eyes and changed into something even worse. A _polo shirt_. If before that he looked like a wanna-be made man, now he was the preppiest prep Roy ever seen. He snickered, and Jason angrily pulled the shirt over his head at once and threw it at Roy.

"Turns out," he said, "the past me has a shitty taste in clothes."

"No, no, it suits you. Just... this is our vacation, and _that_?" Roy waved with his shirt, "Is what you're usually... What you used for undercover stuff. Which we sorta are, here."

"No, we're not," Kory said from her room, letting her voice carry. "Otherwise, I would be hiding my skin and glowing eyes behind a holographic projection. Not to mention the flying."

"We're not here to kick ass and take names either," Roy pointed out. "And that's basically the only two modes we're operating."

"That sucks," Jason said. "I mean. If all you guys do is fighting, literally or covertly... I don't know. Don't you get tired?"

Roy thought over the answer. 'Sure, but we're taking a break _now_?' 'Yeah, but _someone_ gotta do it?' 'No, _never_ , it feels great to have a purpose and do good and be _actually good_ at this?'

Was it a new thing? Or had Jason felt like this before?

Roy hesitated with the answer for too long, it seems. Jason muttered,

"Forget I said anything."

He stalked off, leaving Roy to find Kory. She was just finishing up putting on her dress. Roy helped her with a zipper and didn't take a step back to admire her. He hugged her and left his forehead rest on her shoulderblade. 

"How is he?"

Roy shrugged. 

"I miss him," he said quietly.

It felt like a betrayal. It also felt like a betrayal not to say anything.

Kory didn't reply that Jason was right here. She wasn't in a habit of feeding anyone comforting lies.

When it went off the rails completely, they were on the dance floor. Even Jason. Kory dragged him there because up until that moment, he was just standing by the bar, not even talking to anyone. And there were plenty of people who came up to him, trying to start a conversation. Roy felt relieved and pissed off at the same time when he saw it. He couldn't tell exactly why but it didn't end up mattering because Jason's face was a stone wall. He didn't even look at anyone standing before him. Just at Roy and Kory, executing the routine they learned on the way here.

He tried to wave Kory away, flustered from the drinks he kept plying into himself or from the heat her body radiated. But Kory - you did not say no to her, not when she could just pick you up and carry you where she wanted you. It was funny, seeing them like this. Jason laughed too, and asked her to put him back, please, okay, he was going, he was going...

"I hate you," he said to her with a smile. "I'm going to make a fool of myself, and you by association, do you get it?"

"Does it matter?" she said. "As long as we're together?"

They danced, or more like flayed around, in Jason's case. His version of dancing, when he really got into it, was jumping and pumping his fist up. People gave them a wild breath, but not even Jason was embarrassed anymore. 

Roy heard a gun cocking, froze, and realized that maybe there was another reason for the crowd around them suddenly disappearing.

And that's how it went to shit.

After, when they were flying over the Atlantic ocean, Jason suddenly got up from his chair and rushed to the bathroom. It was the second time he threw up. The first one was after only three of them have been left standing in the club. His face was spattered with blood and brain matter, and he touched it, looked at it, and hurled.

"Sorry," Roy said when he came back. "It was a pretty shitty idea."

"'s not _your_ fault," Jason replied roughly. "It's me they had a problem with. You, Kory, they said they would buy being on vacation here. But if it's Red Hood, he obviously comes for their souls."

"You're not Red Hood anymore," Roy stated. It was supposed to be comforting, and maybe it would have been if he didn't continue. "And even if you were? Red Hood is one of the good guys. The best, maybe, I've ever known. So maybe you can tone it down a little?"

"Tone down what." 

"Self-hatred. You maybe hate Red Hood, but I love him."

"Too bad what all you've got is me."

It wasn't true. Jason still moved like him. And when there was just a split of a second before a bullet would have perforated Roy, he pressed the gun muzzle to the goon's head and released the trigger, and then that man fell, he shot another, and another, and another.

But. Now it sure looked like Jason was regretting it.

So when Oracle left a message on Jason's burner, the one he set up just in case trouble was brewing in Gotham, Roy called her back.

"Don't call here again," he said. "Red Hood is dead."

"Bullshit," she said. "We thought so before. He always comes back."

Roy grits his teeth but doesn't say anything. Yeah, he isn't as optimistic.

Maybe because he wants Jason back.

Oracle says, provocative,

"So how did he die this time?"

And Roy doesn't know. He knows that something happened, Jason went to Ethiopia and didn't come back.

"Ask Batman," he tells her. "He's the one who killed him, after all."

Oracle doesn't call that number again.

Nobody does.

There was a job to be done in Hong Kong. A drug ring that's getting too big. It's a job Jason would have picked up, once upon a time. Bastards use kids to smuggle the product over the border. And Roy knew if he gave Jason the file, he would go.

He would come back to the island almost the same as before. And Roy, maybe for a day or two, wanted that more than anything. More than he wanted to kiss his stupid jawline.

But if Batman killed Red Hood, it was Roy who decided Red Hood better stay buried.

Arsenal and Starfire, they did alright. 

When they got back, Roy almost expected to find Jason gone again. He was still there, though. Unhappy, when he saw Roy's still bleeding shoulder.

He made Roy sit on the table, and glued him back together. Not meeting his eyes even once.

"You should have taken me with you," that's the only thing he said.

And Roy couldn't take a painkiller. So the right half of his upper body hurt like a bitch. His head was dizzy with it. That's the only thing he had for an explanation, why the hell he kissed Jason instead of answering.

When it was over, Roy looked over Jason's shoulder at Kory. Shit, he should have asked her first. She didn't look like she minded at all, but still. It was a principle of the thing and he should have asked.

Well, he was asking now.

"Come here," he said.

She did. She lowered her head to his lips and kissed him gently. Her right hand went between Jason's shoulder blades, keeping him from bolting. She kissed him too, and said,

"It's okay that you weren't there with us. You don't have to. Just be _here_. Okay?"

Jason nodded like he understood. 

But when some time passed, and Kommand'r showed up, and it turned out Kory had to go. It turned out, Jason understood nothing.

"You're not going with me," Kory said to him, taking his hands in hers gently. "You can't. I'm going to war."

"And I'm fucking useless like this," Jason said hoarsely, nodding. "You and Roy will be better off."

"No," Kory said. "Roy's staying too."

It wasn't anything Roy did not expect, or they had not discussed previously. It was news for Jason, though.

And he didn't react well.

"No," he said. "He isn't. He's your partner, he needs to be there to watch your back. I need to be there to watch your backs. But if you don't trust me, that's fine. Just don't insult me, leaving a babysitter behind."

"It's not like that," Roy protested.

"It is! It is like that. What are we going to do alone here? Eat, swim, fuck all day? That's not a life."

It would be a pretty good life, Roy thought.

"I want to move on," Jason said. "I want you to leave me alone. Your friend? He's not coming back."

 _I thought you_ were _our friend,_ Roy didn't say.

Roy and Kory left the Earth together. He still couldn't shake off the feeling it was Jason who was leaving them behind.

**Author's Note:**

> It's actually a side-fic/prequel to one of my other stories which I'm not posting on Ao3 yet, but it could be read as a stand-alone.  
> I'm posting the rest of this universe on [tumblr](https://redjaybathood.tumblr.com/) for now.


End file.
